In the privacy of my dreams, I'm a warrior.
Kimberly DertingStichwörter: soul fantasy rulers queens kings ability social-class
She slid a sideways glance in his direction, trying to figure out just what it was that was making her so . . . so painfully self-conscious all of a sudden.
He was looking right at her. Grinning. A big, stupid, self-satisfied grin, as if he had been eavesdropping on her all-too-embarrassing thoughts.
“What?” She tried to defend herself, wishing she’d never looked his way as she felt her cheeks burning with shame. “What?” she asked again when he just laughed at her.
“Were you planning to ditch school today, or should we turn around?”
She looked up and realized that she’d just driven past the road that led to the school. “Why didn’t you say something?” she accused as she pulled a quick, and probably illegal, U-turn. The tops of her ears felt they were on fire now.
“I just wanted to see where you were heading.” He shrugged. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t skip school. You just have to ask me first.” His new grown-up voice seemed to fill all the space of the small car, and Violet found even that annoying.
“Shut up,” she insisted, even though she couldn’t help smiling now too. She couldn’t believe she’d passed the entrance to her own school. “Now we really are going to be late.
Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?” he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. “He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents it was a setup.”
Violet laughed. “Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots.” She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers.
Jay laughed too, shaking his head. “You’re so cold-hearted,” he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. “How’s he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshmen and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?”
“I don’t see you driving anything but your mom’s car yet. At least he has a bike,” she said, turning on him now.
He pushed her again. “Hey!” he tried to defend himself. “I’m still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths.”
They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other didn’t.
“Right!” Violet protested. “Have you seen my car?” This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch.
“Poor little rich girl!” Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down.
She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded “dead leg” by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was too strong, and what used to be a fairly even matchup was now more like an annihilation of Violet’s side.
“Oh, yeah. Weren’t you the one”—she gasped, still giggling and thrashing to break free from his suddenly way-too-strong grip on her, just as his hand was almost at the sensitive spot along the side of her rib cage—“who got to go to Hawaii . . .” She bucked beneath him, trying to knock him off her. “. . . for spring break . . . last . . .” And then he startled to tickle her while she was pinned beneath him, and her last word came out in a scream: “YEAR?!”
That was how her aunt and uncle found them.
She allowed herself to look his way, pretending she was glancing at the clock on the wall above the door. He was meticulously lost in the lesson, taking notes well beyond the scope of what was written on the board.
She was grateful that at least one of them was listening, because she knew he was going to have to explain it all to her later. And he would, without every knowing that he was the reason she hadn’t heard a word of the lesson.
And the fifth year was the year they discovered the giant boulder at the edge of the playing field, behind which the recess teacher couldn’t see what was happening.
It was the year of their first kiss—or kisses, rather—there one and only foray into romance with each other. They tried it once with their lips closed tightly, a small quick peck, and then again, they tried it by touching their tongues together. The sensation was slippery, supple, and foreign. They both immediately agreed that it was gross and swore they would never do it again.
By the time she’d run full circle, reaching her house, her T-shirt was saturated in sweat, and she felt relaxed from head to toe.
It was the car in the driveway, and the man-boy perched on the hood waiting for her, that made her lose some of her newfound tranquility.
He was grinning at her in a way that made her legs feel like they were made her legs feel like they were made of nothing more solid then gelatin. They might have even quivered from something other than her early-morning run.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she slowed from a jog to a walk and places her hands on her hips. It would take her a few minutes to get her breathing back to normal. Longer if he kept smiling at her like that.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. What about you?”
She opted for the obvious and filled her voice with as much sarcasm as she could. “I live here, actually.”
“Ha-ha, smart-ass. I was asking if maybe you couldn’t sleep too.” He shook his head at her wisecrack. “You know, since you were running at six-thirty in the morning? I was gonna see if you wanted to go for a walk or something.” He eyes her up and down, looking a little disappointed as he hopped down from the car’s hood. “But it looks like you already went without me. That’s okay, it was a long shot anyway.”
Violet didn’t like the way she was suddenly so eager to be near him. Even though they’d been nearly inseparable for the past ten years, it now felt urgent to keep him close.
“All right, let’s go.
So, are you going to the lake today?” Jay asked, finally falling into step beside Violet as their pace slowed. They headed nowhere in particular when they hiked like this, exploring places they’d been more times than they could add up, both on, and off, the well-known paths.
Violet shrugged. “Are you?”
She already knew the answer; they both did. Today was the big end-of-summer party at Lake Tapps. Kind of a last blast before the sun disappeared for the year. Pretty much everyone they knew would be there.
Jay shrugged too. “I was thinking about it.”
Inwardly she smiled at the prospect of spending one of the few remaining lazy summer days with him at the lake. “Yeah?” she questioned, not needing him to actually ask her along. “Maybe I’ll go too.”
He grinned, practically beaming at her, and an unfamiliar warmth that had nothing to do with the weather crept through her. “Cool. You can drive,” he suggested.
She shook her head. If it had been anyone else, she’d probably feel like she was being used, but instead she loved the exhilarating feeling of having something he didn’t have, especially in light of the fact that he suddenly seemed to have everything that she wanted. “Fine, then you can buy me gas,” she added, raising her eyebrows and daring him to say no.
Vi, are you all right?” Jay asked, right beside her now, pulling her off the ground.
Tears burned her eyes, and it wasn’t just from the painful sting radiating up through her hands and knees. Humiliation threatened to overcome the hurt.
Jay hauled her up. She could smell his musky scent in his sweatshirt, and she tried to hold her breath against it. This was bad . . . this was a bad, bad place for her to be.
“Are you hurt?” He pulled her away just enough so he could look down at her.
She bit her lip, trying to will the tears away. She blinked and looked back at him. “I’m okay,” she responded, but her voice broke, making her words sound puny, pathetic even.
He cringed as he bent down and looked at the angry red scrapes on both her knees. He reached out to lightly brush away some of the dirt from them, but she knew that he was afraid of hurting her, so he barely touched them. “We’d better get you back so we can clean those up.” He straightened, and then surprised her by picking her up as he started to carry her along the trail.
She struggled against him. “I can walk!” she protested, feeling even more like a baby as he held her in his arms.
He looked down at her in disbelief. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I think I just saw you trying, and it didn’t work out so well for you.” He didn’t seem inclined to let her down just yet; he just kept walking.
She laughed but insisted again through her teary giggles, “Seriously, put me down! I feel stupid enough already—I don’t need you treating me like an invalid.”
He slowed down unsurely before setting Violet on her own two feet. Internally she cursed herself for being so stubborn, and she wished that he’d put up more of a fight. Why couldn’t he have insisted on carrying her all the way home?
Instead, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll keep ahold of you anyway. I don’t want to be responsible for letting you fall again.
Where’s new-Jay?” Jules asked, and then she and Chelsea exchanged a look and started cracking up at their own joke.
Even Claire, who was generally so serious about everything, giggled a little.
Violet rolled her eyes. “How long did it take you geniuses to plan that little gem?” she accused her friends, which only made them laugh harder. She shook her head. “You two are idiots,” she said, biting into her apple again and deciding to ignore them.
“Which is it, Violet?” Claire asked. “Are they geniuses or idiots?”
Chelsea leaned into Jules now, laughing so hard at their stupid joke that no sound was even coming out of her mouth anymore.
Violet looked up from Chelsea to Jules and then back to Claire. “Idiots,” she stated flatly.
There was another long moment as the Two Stooges struggled to regain their composure.
“Come on, Vi. If we can’t joke about new-Jay, who can we joke about?” Chelsea asked, finally getting herself under control. She used a paper napkin to dab at her watering eyes.
“Joke about whatever you want,” Violet stated as blandly as possible. “It’s not your fault you’re not funny.
It was odd for her, pulling into Jay’s driveway that morning, the same way she had countless times before. She saw the door open, but instead of Jay, his mom poked her head out the door and waved enthusiastically at Violet. Jay pushed past his mom, who was smiling conspiratorially at Violet and practically ignoring her own son.
Violet waved back, feeling sheepish. She knows, Violet thought. Jay’s mom knows.
Jay had no intention of letting her keep it a secret.
The low hum of butterflies she’d been feeling all morning became a violent flutter.
Jay slid in, as casual as ever, and kicked his backpack out of the way at his feet. He stretched back in the seat and grinned at her. “Ready?” he asked, as if sensing her hesitation and teasing her about it.
She slumped down a little in defeat and put the car in reverse. “Do I have a choice?” She tried not to, but she knew she was pouting.
He chuckled and cupped her chin in his hand affectionately, stroking her jaw with his thumb. And then he flashed his dazzling smile at her.
“Not if I have any say about it,” he answered, laughing.
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